Phone-Hacking Fallout: Rebekah Brooks Resigns As CEO Of News International

The former News Of The World editor told News International staffers in an email that she has become “a focal point of the debate” over the integrity of Rupert Murdoch’s news operations and that is “now detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past.”But the resignation suggests that Murdoch feels seriously threatened. His company is being investigated by UK police, Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron, and now in the U.S. by the FBI. Earlier, Murdoch stood by Brooks even after he closed NOTW, abandoned his effort to buy BSkyB, and Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband publicly called on her to leave. Many people questioned why Brooks kept her job last week while hundreds of NOTW employees lost theirs. Brooks had been editor in 2002 when the paper tampered with voice mail messages of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, leading her parents to believe she might still be alive. Brooks is being replaced by an executive with no connection to Murdoch’s newspapers and the scandal: Sky Italia CEO Tom Mockridge. Here’s the News International announcement:

London, 15 July, 2011 – News Corporation today announced the appointment of Tom Mockridge to the role of Chief Executive Officer of News International. Mr Mockridge will assume responsibility for his new role with immediate effect following the resignation of Rebekah Brooks.

Mr Mockridge joins News International from Sky Italia where he has been Chief Executive Officer since launch in 2003. He was also Chief Executive European Television of News Corporation, overseeing News Corporation’s television operations in Europe, outside of the UK.

Laura Cioli, Chief Operating Officer, and Domenico Labianca, Chief Finance Officer, will assume Mr Mockridge’s responsibilities on an interim basis, reporting to James Murdoch, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Chairman and CEO, International, News Corporation. Prior to joining Sky Italia, Mr Mockridge was Chief Executive of the publicly-listed New Zealand company, Independent Newspapers, and Chairman of Sky New Zealand. He previously held various roles at Star Group Limited and spent three years as Chief Executive Officer of Foxtel, News Corporation’s Australian pay TV joint venture. Mr Mockridge joined News Corporation in January 1991, working for Ken Cowley, Chairman and Chief Executive of the Australian newspaper company News Limited. Before that, he was a spokesperson in the Australian government. He started his career as a newspaper journalist in New Zealand.

Mr Mockridge is also a non-executive director of BSkyB and a member of the Supervisory Board of Sky Deutschland. James Murdoch, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Chairman and CEO, International, News Corporation, said: “Tom is an outstanding executive with unrivalled experience across our journalism and television businesses. He has proven himself to be a very effective operator in his time at Sky Italia. Under his leadership, Sky has grown to become one of the world’s most successful pay TV businesses, reaching close to 5 million homes and launching channels like TG24 which has set a new standard for independent journalism in Italy. “I believe that Tom is the best person to move the company forward to a brighter future.”

26 Comments

Someone’s going to jail! I think one of the Murdochs is gonna get pinched for this.

Jemma • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Come on Rebekah, admit it, Rupert and James Murdoch knew about the phone hacking and London Met police payoffs too. Tell Parliament at your testimony. Tell them Rupert and James knew all about it.

Anne N • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

If facial expressions and body language are to be believed, I did not feel that Ms Brooks took the whole matter, once it had blown up, seriously at all!

Perhaps, she recognised the hypocrisy of it all…

I mean, call me naive, green but…horror was my initial reaction and my instincts tell me many things…that it is a practice currently practised in all spheres of life by the great and good, big and small, with the advance of the digital age.

The digital age, has made many people criminally minded and furtive with this practise, ulgh!

For this reason, certain quarters of society, have remained eerily silent…

Ripsnorter • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

I’ll see your Brooks and raise you a pair of Murdochs.

SilenceDogood • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

What I honestly don’t get is why this is happening so late.
If she had been let go last week, it could’ve probably calmed the storm, at least public opinion to some extent.
The idea must’ve been to show that everything is orderly and going as planned.

Buddy Bing • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

The only person who will come out ahead on this will be Nicole Kidman when she stars in the TV movie.

Tom Cruise • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Nicole is too old for this part.

organicblack • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Nicole Kidman is one year older than Brooks. How is that to old?

joe • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

what is she talking about ? Murdoch has no integrity and I doubt she does either. something is telling me she didn’t quit. She was asked to get the hell out

Riz • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Its like closing the stable door after the horse has run – her resignation wont change anything, its beyond anyones control. They’re planning on running apology ads in rival newspapers in the weekend to win back public confidence, but after reading that interview at WSJ the Murdochs ‘still’ dont get what the fuss is about. Britich public is fickle but even they are not that stupid! The damage is done.

Mr. Pricklepants • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Good riddance. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

tom • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Think Nixon…Watergate …and the tapes…and, the slow upward resignations of aids starting with those thrown under the bus and finally ending with Erlichman and Haldeman.

The questions is. “What did the Murdochs know…and, when did they know it?”

Unfortunately, I don’t think Rupert has tapes, and if he did…they were destroyed.

Next week’s appearance should be great theater.

Jerkstore Jimmy • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Follow the money.

So-Socrates • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

I’m guessing she stuck around long enough to change the password on the Swiss bank account containing her “severance’ package and trash all the incriminating files.

Poor Rupert, this just won’t go away will it? First his GF, could his son be far behind? Tip o’ the hat to the Brits though, at least they’ve got the stones to have a go at NewsCorp.

Anonymous • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Does anyone really believe she feels any genuine remorse at all? She’s cold blooded which is how she got to the top of such a disreputable newspaper in the first place.

nyguy • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Rebekah (Brooks) Wade knows where all the bodies are buried. You can believe there is either a phenomenal severance package waiting for her or one loaded Swiss bank account. Either way she has been thrown under the bus for one reason only, she’s not family. This whole thing is being done to try and keep James Murdoch from ever seeing the inside of a prison.

Peterszee • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

The current joke being that she got the message that Rupert wanted her out when she hacked his voicemail.

The arrogance and stubbornness that’s served Murdoch so well over the decades, which led him to keep Brooks on instead of sacking her (and others) immediately, had apparently also left him and his lackeys blind to just how furious the public would be at these kinds of behaviors.

David • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Murdoch’s NewsCorps now being investigated by the FBI in a NEW scandal involving them hacking into 9/11 victims’ cell phones. Murdoch’s right wing empire is crumbling.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Scoot • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Shakespeare could never have penned such a scandalous tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

Shakespeare's son • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Scoot,

I said the same thing on another board. Foul deeds will rise! There’s something rotten in the delusional state of Murdoch.

dimes • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

The moment Elizabeth Murdoch was quoted in the paper saying that Brooks had “f***ed the company”, her fate was sealed.

Next to go will be James Murdoch’s role as chairman of BSkyB.

Rhandi • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

this will be a great Law And Order episode. I see Heather Ambrose as Brooks and Christopher Plummer as Rupert Murdoch.

Anita Busch • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

I know about first-hand about phone hacking and cover-ups … and how the media protects their own … I wish we would have had the guts of journalists at The Guardian in this country when the Pellicano case was going on.

Anonymous • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

There is NO Nick Davies in this country, with the exception of Seymour Hersh.

Graham Hill • on Jul 15, 2011 3:42 am

Forget the hacking of 9-11 victims families… Murdoch, CNN, MSNBC, BBC and the rest -were all complicit with the false-flag 9/11 mega crime itself. They were the salesman -and then the flag wavers to war!

As with Oklahoma City, USS Cole, 7/7 bombings and on and on. The worlds media owners all do the bidding of the banks that own them.
London’s former press capital Fleet Street, was nicknamed the “street of shame” well over a hundred years ago. The whore politicians demanding Murdoch’s head are all part of this perverted charade called democracy.

The US and British “governments” through their “intelligence” criminal cabal, hack into our phones and computers every second of the day… but thats called keeping us safe from the “terrorists”.